Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).
Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
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Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#42allegedly, Google did not approve Enel X charging station finder app Juicepass on the Android Auto store due to security and standards concerns. I do not understand why Google did not provide a clear exhaustive explanation on the specifics but just a generic "We have strong standards for the publishing of apps on our Android Auto store". They are not even trying to justify or defend themselves because they don't need to - they will pay the fine and move on.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#43Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).
If Google leaves the Italian market, Italy could have a chance to create a local Google. Google's scale is huge and they have a lot of products, but a subset of these products, such as tracking, ads, search, emails, and videos, is achievable for a country like Italy in my opinion.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#44Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).
> Good for Italy -- they have no chance of creating a Google, so their best path to tech dollars is a regular cadence of these $100m fines (but not so often that Big Tech exits the Italian market).
Are you saying that it's not that Google was wrong here, but that the Italian government want to parasitize on Google?
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does your comment mean, in less poetic form?
I'm sorry but I can't express myself in a "less poetic form", because this space is not suitable for in-depth conversation and also because I don't have enough domain over the language. There's a book I can recommend though: Society of the Spectacle, Guy Debord, 1967.
I rather liked and prefer your poetic form.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#46The way antitrust is working in recent years is kind of ridiculous. Google in Europe is becoming a rich case study in antitrust meh. You find that adwords engages in a blatant "monopolistic abuse" in some specific sense. In the Adwords EU case for example, Google was both monopsonising (google search) and monopolising search advertising. But, the actual violations are specific, like exclusivity requirements and other…
Ive long held that corps should be limited to a single trade category (as per trademarks). I think that change would solve a lot of the complexities that megacorps introduce to the application of legislature.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Walled gardens are just security theater. The App Store revenue was $72bn in 2020, yet the review time for an app is a few hours. App reviewers barely have any qualifications, they're just "call center operators" running off a script.
a) Apple has invested heavily in automated review methods over the years. b) I don't know what qualifications you think an app reviewer needs. They are not looking through the code but simply playing with the app on a range of devices. c) It is only a few hours for updates. Initial app submissions often take days/weeks and are very thorough.
Your definition of "thorough" and mine are very different. I highly doubt they could do a meaningful review without the complete source code for the app. It's not unusual that apps change their behavior after the review and this sometimes comes from binary dylibs that the developer didn't write.
The whole thing is a scam.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Walled gardens are just security theater. The App Store revenue was $72bn in 2020, yet the review time for an app is a few hours. App reviewers barely have any qualifications, they're just "call center operators" running off a script.
a) Apple has invested heavily in automated review methods over the years. b) I don't know what qualifications you think an app reviewer needs. They are not looking through the code but simply playing with the app on a range of devices. c) It is only a few hours for updates. Initial app submissions often take days/weeks and are very thorough.
c is not correct. I publish lots of apps for clients and I regularly get new apps published in less than 3 hours. Apples official stats are: 90% of apps get reviewed in less than 48h and 50% in less than 24.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps app Should this say “…ruled it was because…”? I can’t figure out the reason for the fine otherwise.
Just to explain for non-native anglophones, I think what they meant was "gave out a rule", but in idiomatic English "ruled something out" means it has been eliminated as a possibility.
Yep, and to explain further; The first instance of "ruling" in a judicial sense probably derives from rule (i.e dictat/maxim).
To "rule out" is to use a ruler to cross a line through something in a written list of items, thereby eliminating it from consideration.
Re: Google fined €100M by Italian antitrust over Google Play abuse of dominance
#50Quick summary: the biggest electricity provider in the country (ENEL) made an app (Juicepass) to find and manage their charging stations across the country. The Android Auto functionality of the app has been rejected by Google for non disclosed "security concerns while driving". The antitrust ruled out it was because Google wanted to sabotage competitor apps to the charging stations finder built-in in the Google Maps…
And a quick reminder to everybody else that walled gardens don't actually help the consumer. They only arbitrarily restrict choice, they don't actually improve security (if any, that's provided by the sandboxing, not by the store "review"). If this company (ENEL) wasn't a huge state-wide electric company (inheriting their power and ties from the previous state-owned monopoly) how many chances do you think they had to…
It’s not all black and white. Walled gardens can have upsides for the consumer. Ruling that out discredits your argument